


The Dread Companion & The Wingman

by somber_malachite



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Bad Puns, Friendship, Gen, Watford Fourth Year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 02:07:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20631314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somber_malachite/pseuds/somber_malachite
Summary: It's fourth year, Penny's been asked to show one of the American exchange students around campus, and Simon isn't sure how he feels about it.





	The Dread Companion & The Wingman

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Carry On Mini Bang 2019, with two absolutely amazing illustrations by [@jessethejoyful](https://jessethejoyful.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. Please check her work out and give her some love!

The bell rings for lunch, and I jam my bowler down onto my head as students filter out of the Elocution classroom and into the hall.

“Hey, Penny,” I say, looking down and to my right, where I can usually find her. She casts **“stay put”** for me on my bowler any time we need to cross the grounds so that I don’t end up with it permanently stuck to my head.

But she’s not there. Wasn’t she just there? We were sitting beside each other in class, like we always do.

I turn my head and look a few metres forward and find her deep in conversation with the American exchange student. Micah, was it? Penny’s been asked to show him around campus and to keep an eye on him, presumably so that he doesn’t end up stuck in the catacombs or eaten by merwolves. All the top students have been given an American to watch over. Baz has one too, a heavily-freckled girl named Sarah, who seems completely unimpressed with him. She can’t stop rolling her eyes when he talks. It’s honestly quite validating, and I’ve been hoping I’ll get a chance to talk to her soon, seeing as Penny tends to zone out whenever I really get going about Baz.

But unlike Baz and Sarah, Penny and Micah seemed to hit it off as soon as they were introduced this morning. Which is a good thing, of course. Penny’s telling him about something now, her hands moving quickly through the space between them. I’ve never seen her speaking that animatedly to anyone but her parents or a teacher or me. Penny says there’s no point wasting the precious little time you have on Earth with small talk, and that silence is only awkward if you _let it_ be awkward. She’s still barely shared any personal information with her roommate, Trixie. So the fact that she’s talking to Micah this much (enough to forget about my bowler, apparently) must really mean something.

Micah has turned his head to watch her, nodding vigorously and grinning, and he nearly walks into a stone column before Penny catches him by the sleeve and tugs at the last second. He steps quickly towards her and laughs.

Then Penny suddenly takes a step to the side, widening the gap between her and Micah. She hooks her thumbs into the straps of her backpack and looks over her shoulder.

“Simon!” she calls. “Catch up, will you?”

I quicken my pace for a few strides, and then Penny takes another step to the side so that I can walk between them.

“I was just telling Micah about my dad’s research into the Humdrum,” Penny says.

“It’s really interesting,” Micah says. “I’d love to read some of his papers on the subject.”

“Yeah,” I say, “super interesting.” Then I clear my throat and lower my voice. “Um, Penny, can you help with my--” I tilt my head to the side, still holding my hat on with one hand.

“Oh, sorry, Si,” she says. “I forgot about your bowler. Here, **stay put!**”

My hat constricts slightly on my head. It’s not painful, but it’s not comfortable either.

“Micah’s mum works at a magickal archive in Chicago,” Penny says, turning her face towards him again. “Isn’t that brilliant? They’ve got all these records of spells that stopped working because the language evolved. You can even track a spell’s loss of power over time.”

“It’s important for us to keep records of magic, since we don’t have our own schools, and most of us just learn from our families,” says Micah, smiling a bit sheepishly and pushing his glasses up. “Archives help us see the big picture, how magic’s changed and how it’s likely to change in the future. Obviously we can’t rely on it staying the same forever. I mean, based on what you guys are going through, maybe we can’t even rely on magic _being _around forever.”

I scratch at the back of my neck and feel my face grow hot. It’s hard to not feel personally responsible for the fact that the Humdrum is still out there, sucking the magic out of the atmosphere. After all, I’m supposed to be uniquely suited to defeating it.

“The school has an archive, but you need special permission to get access to it,” Penny says, scoffing. “And don’t get me started on the state of our library. The Mage keeps taking things off the shelf without warning when he deems them no longer relevant to modern mages. And I assume the Old Families have private libraries, but it’s not like those are open to the public.”

I want to think of something to ask Micah, to show I’m paying attention and interested. But I can’t think of anything remotely intelligent to say about magickal archives. Not that it matters anyway: his eyes are fixed on Penny, and even though they’re both significantly shorter than me, they’ve managed to end up a few strides ahead of me again.

We get to the dining hall and load up our plates for supper together, before we sit down in Penny’s and my usual spot. I shovel food into my mouth while Penny and Micah keep up a steady stream of conversation. She never does this with anyone. In fact, she’s always complaining about me inviting people over to our preferred corner of the dining hall. Great snakes, she gave me a hard enough time when I started inviting Agatha to eat with us, and I’m fairly certain she’s Penny’s only friend other than me.

“So what do you guys do for fun?” Micah asks.

I’m about to say something about visiting Ebb and the goats and watching football matches, things I would put on the Official Tour of Watford if there was one, but Penny’s talking before I can put together a sentence.

“Oh, Simon and I are always going on quests.”

“Quests?” Micah asks, eyebrows raised.

She nods. “Wait... has anyone told you that Simon’s the Greatest Mage?” she says, right as I take a bite of cauliflower cheese. It throws me off so much that I end up biting my tongue.

Penny must notice my face. “You alright, Simon?”

I wince and nod.

“Oh really?” Micah frowns and takes a good look at me. “Like, um, the greatest mage at Watford, or--”

Oh, Merlin, he doesn’t know about the prophecies, and he just saw me ask Penny to spell my bloody hat to my head to keep it from blowing away.

“Nope,” I say around my swollen tongue, and then I stop talking, because I don’t know what else to say. Nobody’s ever had to ask for clarification before. In fact, I’ve never had to tell anyone. My reputation has always proceeded me. My face has gotten so hot, and I’m itchy all over. I’ve never worried about going off from sheer embarrassment before, but there’s a first time for everything.

“Do you not know about The Greatest Mage?” Penny asks.

Micah shakes his head.

I expect Penny to go on a rant about the obvious deficiencies of American magickal education, but instead she just starts explaining about the prophecies, and my power, and how the Mage found me and brought me to Watford. It’s bloody embarrassing.

“So, these quests you go on,” Micah says, “are you trying to find the Humdrum, or what?”

“Not exactly,” I say. I’m still blushing, but I’m also desperate to contribute something to this conversation, and aren’t I qualified to discuss my own life? “It’s more like the Mage asks me to track down magickal artifacts that he thinks might be useful against the Humdrum--”

“And we go on quests to find them,” Penny concludes, smiling proudly. “I helped Simon track down a dragon in first year, and then he fought it.”

“That was kind of an accident,” I mutter.

“Last year we found these three hidden gates on the grounds that are supposed to lead to secret passages--”

“And we only ever got one to open.”

Penny waves a hand at me dismissively, and I glance over at Micah. He’s not even touching his dinner, just watching Penny through wide eyes. He looks awestruck.

They start talking about the gates, and the magickal theory behind teleportation. Penny goes on a long tangent about wormholes and space-time and I tune her out because this kind of thing always overwhelms me, but I can tell Micah’s following along, nodding and offering up his own ideas.

Most of the students in our year avoid Penny, and she certainly doesn’t mind that. She’s my best friend, but she’s not _friendly_ in general. Any time I’ve brought it up, she says that most women spend too much time trying to be likeable, and anyway, our friendship is all she really needs. So if she wants to spend time with someone, it must mean she thinks they’re really worth the effort.

“I’d rather have one Simon-level friend than, oh, I don’t know, twenty Gareths,” she told me once. “Quality over quantity.”

The trouble is, now I’m worried about my quality as compared to Micah’s. It’s never been a secret that Penny is more clever than me. Is she relieved to finally be talking to someone on her level?

After a few more minutes, Agatha approaches our table. Penny stops talking midsentence to smile at her.

“Hiya, Agatha. This is Micah. He’s one of the Americans.”

“Hi Micah,” Agatha says, before sliding into the seat next to mine. She offers me a small, sweet smile. That smile would, on any other day, be enough to clear my mind of any worries or stress. Usually, when Agatha’s sitting beside me, I don’t have much mental space to spare for anything else, not the Humdrum or homework or whatever Baz has done recently to piss me off. But today Agatha’s beauty and grace just throws my awkwardness into sharp contrast, so I decide to get up for a second helping of dinner.

Some of the other Americans, including Sarah, whisk Micah off to hang out after supper. I can tell Penny’s sorry to see him go, but we have plans anyway. We’re having a research night in the library, which generally means I practice spells or swordplay (a safe distance from the books) while Penny reads and bounces ideas off of me. Tonight, I feel a little too off balance to trust myself with a sword, so I’m doodling on the back of my recently-graded Political Science essay. I try not to dwell on the fact that Penny basically wrote the majority of it for me.

Penny has cast **fine-tooth comb** on a book about four inches thick, and she’s currently scribbling notes as she goes through the pages highlighted by her spell. We’re supposed to be finding a way to create a new pelt for a selkie whose original one was destroyed. The Mage wants use this as a peace offering to form an alliance with the selkies. He thinks their magic, which exists outside the confines of spoken language, might help us restore magic to the dead spots scattered throughout Britain. Penny calls it Operation: Seal of Approval. (Penny likes to come up with puns to refer to all of our quests.)

I start drumming my fingers on the tabletop when I get tired of doodling, prompting her to look up at me.

“Hey, Si,” she says softly. “Do you think it would be okay if I asked Micah to help us out with this?”

“What, do they keep the secret to selkie magic in an American archive?” I say, surprising myself with the edge in my voice.

Penny blinks a few times, apparently surprised to hear it too. “Well, no, not that I know of.”

“I expect he’d be more helpful to you than I am, though,” I mutter.

“Simon,” she says, reaching out to grab my hand. “You know that’s not true. You’re the Chosen One.”

I grunt, but I don’t pull my hand back.

“And you’re _Simon. _One of a kind. Irreplaceable. I just thought it might be good to get a fresh pair of eyes on this, that’s all.”

“You’ve never wanted a fresh pair of eyes before” I say, remembering the time I tried to rope Agatha into a research session. She only hung around for fifteen minutes before finding an excuse to leave, and even though I know Penny likes Agatha, she didn’t exactly seem sad to see her go, just muttered that I should cut to the chase next time and ask Agatha on a proper date (something I still haven’t worked up the courage to do).

Something clicks into place.

“Penny, do you _like_ Micah?” I ask, feeling my jealousy wash away in an instant. I love Penny, possibly more than I’ve ever loved anyone else. When I imagine my future, uncertain as it is, Penny’s always there, the one thing I’m most certain of. But I’ve always known it wasn’t romantic.

She clears her throat and lets go of my hand. “I really don’t know him well enough to say.”

I reach out and poke her shoulder. “Pen, come on. You can tell me.”

She blushes, but she waves a hand dismissively at me. “Oh, maybe a bit, but I think it’s just exciting to talk to someone from a different culture. I feel like I could learn a lot from him.”

“He’s not bad-looking,” I say. “Incredibly symmetrical face.”

Penny frowns. “Simon,” she says slowly, “do you frequently assess the symmetry of people’s faces?”

I shrug. “Doesn’t matter. Look, you can bring him along for research help. I mean, if you trust him, and if you think it’d be helpful.”

“I trust him to respect books,” Penny says. “And he seems smart enough--”

“But you could also just, I don’t know, hang out with him. If you want.”

“Well, I do need to show him around campus and make sure he doesn’t get lost.”

“_Penny_.”

“Simon, you’re being ridiculous,” she says, even though I know I’m not. She rolls her eyes, but I can tell her heart’s not in it. “Look, do you want to know what I’ve learned about selkies so far or not?”

“Yeah,” I say, but I’m grinning now. “Go on and tell me.”

We don’t make all that much progress on the selkies thing tonight, but as Penny walks me back to Mummers House, I do manage to work something else out.

“Hey, Pen?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you know how you’re always saying you’re my dread companion?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I think for this semester, on top of being the Chosen One, I’m going to be your wingman.”

“_Simon_.” She rolls her eyes, but I can tell she’s fighting a smile.

“It’s not like it’ll take much effort on my part. I can tell he likes you,” I say.

“Why wouldn’t he? I’ve been perfectly polite.”

“Penny, he _fancies_ you.”

Penny sighs deeply, and then says, very quietly, “Do you really think so?”

I grin. “Know so. So, what do you say? New side quest? Operation... I don’t know, Operation: Get Penny a Boyfriend?”

“Merlin and Morgana, Simon, definitely don’t call it that. It’s not even a pun.”

“You can come up with a better name, if you like.”

“Oh, I will,” she says. Then she smiles and bumps me with her shoulder. “Thanks, Si.”

I nudge her with my hip, just hard enough to make her stumble and laugh in surprise, and then we keep walking down the path together.

  



End file.
